Loose Ends
by MissAppropriation
Summary: To save Clara, the Doctor steps into his own timeline without a plan. Luckily, he has friends who are willing to look out for him, even though they might also call him names afterwards. Set during/after Name of the Doctor. Characters: The Master, River, 11th Doctor, Jenny, Vastra and Strax, Clara, the TARDIS. Yep, they're all here! It's a party. Master/Clara.


Just to clarify, this is set towards the end of Once Upon a Time... In case you have been following my fic and are wondering, or if you haven't and are interested in more Master/Clara. :)

You don't need to read that to enjoy this, but you _do_ need to have watched _Name of the Doctor_ \- none of this makes any sense outside of that episode.

Original concept was because I just couldn't understand how the Doctor got out of that... Sometimes he needs help, ok? This fact is very much Canon. ;) There were a lot of other unresolved plot threads in this particular episode: some are touched on briefly here, but I have more to say on those at some future time.

Anyway, enjoy! :) :)

* * *

**Loose Ends**

"River..." the Master addressed his unexpected visitor. He glanced around the control room, checking for anything else out of place. Finding nothing, he turned back to her, eyes narrowed. "What are you doing in my TARDIS?"

River Song, usually all bluster and fun, was quiet, urgent. Frightened. "The Doctor's in trouble," she said.

The Master rolled his eyes and adjusted a couple of settings on the Console. "When isn't he?" he asked rhetorically.

The Doctor was in trouble every minute of every day. In the rare moments when he wasn't, he was actively looking for more. And the Master found he just didn't have the patience for the Doctor's antics right now. He'd had a strange couple of weeks and there was a feeling like a splinter beneath his skin or a pebble stuck in his boot...

He had to say goodbye to Clara today.

He'd put it off for far too long and he'd really like to get it over with at this point.

"Listen, can this wait?" he asked River's hologram. "I'm sort of in the middle of something."

"He stepped into his own timestream," River said.

The Master froze as everything stopped.

"He did _what_?" he shouted, jumping back into action. "Coordinates!"

"Already entered," River said.

The Master nodded, rushing around the Console, trying to speed his TARDIS faster through the vortex.

_Trenzalore._

He knew this story, or at least part of it. He'd seen the Doctor after this, so there was still a way to save him... If he was quick. If he was smart.

He looked up to ask a question but River was gone.

He'd save his questions for the Doctor... If he survived.

And then he'd _kill_ him.

...

The Doctor stumbled through his own life as it collapsed and folded in around him like an Escher lithograph.

This really had been an unbelievably terrible idea...

But he'd known that.

He held Clara close.

_Worth the risk,_ he thought.

Because he'd found her, somehow safe and alive.

And now...?

Now he just had to get back _out_.

That was turning out to be far more difficult than he had expected.

And as he'd expected it to be very nearly impossible, that was... Not good.

Everywhere he turned there were pieces of his own life, spinning around him. It was a constantly-shifting labyrinth, a kaleidoscopic flurry of himself, past and future. There was no sense of direction, no signs, no exit.

He'd found Clara so easily, the one piece in his timeline which didn't belong.

The TARDIS had isolated her, protecting her at a still point in the Doctor's life.

_She always knew what was best._

The TARDIS had given him what he needed before he'd even thought to ask...

Just as she always did.

She was shielding them both now, holding them together.

But she couldn't get them _out_.

And she couldn't keep his entire timeline from imploding catastrophically on top of both of them.

He just needed to find the exit...

But it all looked the same...

And the closer he looked, the more confusing it all became.

His own life all around him, trying to drag him away in every possible direction.

He closed his eyes, dizzy.

"Sorry, Clara," he muttered to his unconscious friend. "This was a bad idea."

And then he heard it.

Somewhere off to his left. Something familiar.

But more than that... Because _everything_ here was familiar.

This was something that didn't _fit_.

_Beep beep beep beep._

A signal...?

A message!

_One two three four._

The Doctor smiled, turning his head towards the sound.

"Clara..." he said jubilantly. "Clara, that's not me!" He laughed in sheer relief. "That's not _me_."

_One two three four._

_This way, Doctor._

"Ha," the Doctor laughed. "Follow the sound. Going home."

...

Jenny Flint watched the Doctor step into his own timeline. She wasn't entirely clear on what had been happening during the last few hours.

They'd had a conference call.

She had died and then woken up on an alien planet, surrounded by enemies.

And then... Then she wasn't sure.

There was a blank, a nothing which had swallowed her up...

But now here she was, inside the overgrown wreck of the Doctor's TARDIS, standing next to Vastra and Strax.

Dr. Simeon, the Great Intelligence, was gone, defeated by Clara's sacrifice.

Jenny had asked for details as the Doctor stared silently at the weed-covered walls of the TARDIS.

"We're all restored," Vastra had said. "That's all that matters now."

But the Doctor disagreed. He planned to save Clara. And though Jenny wasn't a Time Lord or a Silurian or even a Sontaran... She knew that was impossible.

The Doctor ignored their questions, giving the instructions he gave when the situation was hopeless. And then, rather than listen or argue, he'd had a moving conversation with what was apparently his wife's ghost?

Jenny wondered just how much she had missed, because this seemed to be making even less sense than usual...

And then the Doctor stepped into his own timestream as casually as if he was going for a walk in the park.

He must have been terrified.

The shimmering threads of his life burst into a thousand brilliant sparks of color as he entered.

It would have been enchanting if it hadn't been so obviously disastrous.

Jenny Flint turned to Vastra. Her wife's green skin was pale, eyes wide with despair.

"We have to help him," Jenny said.

"There is nothing we can do," Vastra responded fatalistically. "We shall just have to trust that the Doctor knows what he's doing... This time."

"But we have to get him _out_," Jenny insisted. "When Simeon went into that, the stars started to go out. What happens if the Doctor dies in there?"

"I think... I think maybe we all cease to exist then," Vastra murmured.

And that was when the box appeared.

It materialized like the TARDIS, that same groaning, wheezing sound, the same labored fade into existence.

But it didn't look right. It wasn't blue, didn't say Police Box. It was a grandfather clock.

As soon as the clock was solid, the front opened and a man stepped out, his pace hurried, purposeful. He was fiddling with something rod-shaped, like the Doctor's sonic screwdriver.

"Who are you?" she asked the man.

For just a moment, Jenny wondered if this was a Doctor she hadn't met yet.

And then he looked up and his eyes were not the Doctor's eyes.

There was an untempered rage burning in those eyes.

"A friend," he said shortly. His gaze took them in with disdainful judgment and then dismissed them completely. He went back to his sonic screwdriver.

Strax moved to look for something to use as a weapon but Vastra put a hand up to stop him. "No, Strax," she said quietly. Jenny saw that Vastra understood something about what was happening here.

"Madame, I must protest," Strax huffed. "This man is _clearly_ an enemy combatant. If you let me kill him now -"

"_No_, Strax," Vastra said firmly. She was watching the man, curious and cautious.

"I suggest you restrain your pet if you want to keep him," the man said without looking up. "One fewer Sontaran in the Universe won't make the slightest difference to me and I don't have time to be nice right now."

Vastra didn't respond.

Jenny watched silently as the man finished adjusting the settings and pointed his screwdriver straight at the Doctor's timestream.

A signal filled the ruined TARDIS interior.

_Beep beep beep beep._

_Beep beep beep beep._

"Come on, Doctor," the man muttered. His expression was intense. Worry, anger, fear, desperation, all wrapped up in a concentrated frown. "Come on..."

_Beep beep beep beep._

_Beep beep beep beep._

_Beep beep beep beep._

For ten seconds, everyone seemed to be holding their breath.

Then the Doctor stumbled out of the shivering, chaotic light show which was his life. And he was holding Clara.

The man lowered his screwdriver with an audible sigh of relief as the Doctor's timestream stabilized.

The Doctor set Clara down on the TARDIS floor carefully. She didn't move.

Jenny worried that this day might end tragically after all.

But then the Doctor looked up at the strange man with a drunkenly triumphant smile and she knew that everything was going to be just fine.

"Thanks," the Doctor said.

The man didn't answer and his face was carefully controlled now. He knelt down next to Clara and the Doctor. "Is she -?"

The Doctor answered before he could finish his sentence. "Still breathing."

"I can see that," the man snapped. He reached out a hand towards Clara's head.

The Doctor smacked it away with a weirdly dark look.

"What are you doing?" the Doctor asked, his tone accusatory.

The man threw his hands up with a flash of anger.

"Leave her alone," the Doctor warned.

The man said nothing and his slitted eyes were hard to read.

Everyone waited in silence as the Doctor reached out to put both hands around Clara's head and closed his eyes, a frown of concentration crinkling his face as he psychically linked with his companion.

After a few seconds, he let go and opened his eyes. There were tears in them and he lifted a hand to his mouth, covering his reaction. For a moment, Jenny wasn't certain if the news was good or bad.

She wasn't the only one.

"Well?" the other man asked, staring at the Doctor intently.

"She's ok," the Doctor smiled. He brushed the hair away from her face lovingly. "She's still Clara."

The man stood, nodding, his eyes on Clara's prone form. "Good."

There was no hint of warning for what came next.

The man moved lightning-fast, shoving the Doctor to the floor, hard.

The Doctor landed in an undignified heap, his face wearing a stunned expression.

"You... _Idiot_," the man snarled ferociously.

"Oi!" the Doctor protested, scrambling back to his feet with an offended pout. "What was that for?"

"Your own _timeline_?" the man hissed, advancing menacingly. "Are you _insane_?"

Strax broke off a piece of the TARDIS railing and started towards the two men but Vastra shook her head urgently and pushed both him and Jenny back a step.

"Now," the Doctor was saying, both forefingers up, backing away. "The thing is... It all worked out, didn't it, really?"

The man was glaring murderously, punctuating every insult with a violent shove. "Of all the _stupid..._" Shove. "_Harebrained..._" Shove. "_Knuckleheaded_..." Shove.

The Doctor cringed away comically at first, then struck back in an ineffectual flurry of hands and elbows. "Hey! Stop hitting me!" he shouted. There was no authority in his tone.

Jenny had seen the Doctor command armies, had met his ex-convict wife, had watched monsters flee from him in terror...

But this reminded her of how her brothers used to fight when they were young. Tussling and rough-housing as if it was some form of communication.

It was oddly funny.

She glanced at Vastra, who looked less amused than Jenny would have expected.

The man shoved the Doctor again, saying a bunch of words in a language Jenny didn't recognize.

That seemed strange. The TARDIS usually translated everything.

"Oi," the Doctor said again, looking embarrassed this time. "_Language_…" He raised a hand to cover his lowered voice. "Strax is very sensitive."

This seemed to infuriate the man even more. He made an angry noise which certainly wasn't a word in any language and grabbed the Doctor's lapels, pulling him close threateningly.

For a moment, seeing the look on the man's face, Jenny was worried he might actually kill the Doctor...

But the Doctor just looked down at him and smiled that goofy, confident smile.

"It's ok..." he said over his shoulder without breaking eye contact. "He won't hurt me."

"Don't count on it," the man growled.

The Doctor turned serious, breaking the man's hold roughly and straightening his coat. "I had to save her," he said quietly.

The man shook his head, furious, pacing back and forth like a caged animal.

"What else could I do?" the Doctor asked.

The man turned away, rolling his eyes disgustedly at the ceiling. He spun back around angrily. "You could have _asked for help_."

The Doctor snorted softly. "Oh, and you just would have dropped everything and come running, I suppose?" He said it with mild sarcasm, openly amused by the idea.

The man spread his arms and gave the Doctor an annoyed look.

The Doctor realized that what he'd described had actually just happened and his expression softened.

"Oh!" he said with a delighted smile.

He turned around to share the moment with his friends, gesturing happily to the man he hadn't thought to introduce.

Jenny smiled back, though she wasn't following this at all.

The Doctor turned back to the unnamed man. "Well, it's not like I have your phone number," he pointed out in a friendly tone.

The man pulled out his screwdriver again and pointed it towards the Doctor, who looked slightly concerned for a moment. But all that happened was a couple of small beeps from the pocket the Doctor usually kept his sonic screwdriver in.

"There," the man said, replacing the device in his jacket. "Now you do. Next time you feel the urge to do something uselessly self-destructive... _Use it_."

The Doctor looked at the man, smiling, mouth opening and closing as if he was about to say something but wasn't sure what. He wrung his hands together as if it would help him squeeze the words out of thin air. "You were _worried_ about me," he said eventually, smug.

"I was worried about _myself_," the man returned unconvincingly. "What do you think happens to me if your timeline collapses?"

"Ha," the Doctor said. "Right. Of course." He didn't appear the least bit fooled.

The man crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. The expression he wore was contemptuous but the look in his eyes didn't match. "Is this seriously what you've been doing since the War?" he asked. "Running around on your own like some outer space cowboy?"

"Ooh!" The Doctor seemed pleased by this characterization, absentmindedly striking a couple of half-hearted poses. The man shook his head and stifled a smile before turning his attention towards Jenny and her cohorts.

"And _you_," he said, focusing a glare in their direction. "You're supposed to _stop_ him from pulling stunts like this."

"No, hang on..." the Doctor said uncertainly, his expression turning to worry.

Vastra spoke up. "And how would you suggest we do that?" she asked.

The man took a couple of steps closer. "You figure something out," he said. His voice was quiet but there was danger in his eyes.

"The Doctor is not a child," Vastra pointed out.

The man just laughed and stared her in the eyes like he was reading a book.

Vastra reached an arm out and pushed Jenny back behind her.

"I know who you are," Vastra said softly. "I've heard the stories of the Master, of the lives you have taken, of whole civilizations in mourning."

The Master smiled a terrifying smile.

"And I know _you_," he returned evenly. "The Victorian Silurian who fancies herself a great detective. Playing house with her little human wife and her trained monkey of a Sontaran. Tell me, was housebreaking him difficult?"

Strax raised his makeshift weapon with a bellow of rage and the Master shot him without blinking.

"Hey!" the Doctor shouted in alarm, moving forward to intervene.

"Don't worry," the Master said calmly, "he's just stunned."

The Doctor backed away, hands flapping, unsure of whether or not to interfere.

"Stay away from Victorian London," Vastra warned the Master quietly. Her fangs were bared, sharp and white.

The Doctor threw up his arms helplessly and ran a hand through his hair. "You... You basically might as well have just _invited_ him," he sighed unhappily.

The Master smiled and Jenny saw that the Doctor was absolutely right.

She started to worry about the outcome of this standoff. Vastra never liked being the first to back down and judging from the diamond glitter in her eyes now, she didn't seem about to make an exception.

Then Clara stirred and Jenny saw the Doctor and the Master both spin synchronously to look in her direction.

The Doctor rushed to her side, slowing as he knelt down like he was afraid to startle her with any sudden movements.

Jenny looked around and the Master was just... Gone. As if he had melted into the shadows of the dying TARDIS.

"Hey," the Doctor was saying. "It's ok, you're ok."

"Doctor?" Clara asked blearily. "Did we die?"

"No..." he assured her happily. "No. Not today. Thanks to you."

Clara smiled and closed her eyes, satisfied. "Good," she murmured.

"Go back to sleep," the Doctor said gently. "Job well done, Clara Oswald."

The Master reappeared from somewhere, hands in his pockets, standing over the Doctor and Clara. Jenny blinked, wondering how he did that.

"She'll be alright," the Doctor said. It was like he was trying to convince himself.

"Yeah... She will be," the Master nodded, sounding much more certain.

The Master looked down at the Doctor, distracted by his companion. Then his eyes moved to Clara and lingered on her face for a long moment. And Jenny saw something strange in his gaze.

Something... Unexpected.

"Well... See you around," the Master said abruptly, turning towards his TARDIS.

"Ah, can we..." the Doctor looked up at him uncertainly.

"What?" the Master asked.

"Have a ride?" the Doctor asked hopefully.

The Master seemed slightly confused. "What's wrong with your TARDIS?"

The Doctor pointed vaguely towards the oversized doors. "It's out _there_ somewhere."

The Master scoffed. "Seriously?"

"It's a long walk," the Doctor replied, flustered. "Strax is heavier than he looks."

The Master shook his head with a sneaking smile. Jenny wasn't sure if he was pleased to see the Doctor or just pleased to turn him down. "What do I look like, a taxi service?" he mocked. "Nice meeting you," he said absently to Vastra and company.

He stepped into his TARDIS and dematerialized as unexpectedly as he'd arrived.

The Doctor watched the other TARDIS vanish with a sigh. Then he picked Clara up in his arms. He took one last sorrowful look around the ruined, future Console room of his own TARDIS. He shook the moment off but it stayed in his eyes.

"Time to go home, Clara," he said.

He headed out onto the battlefield, back towards his current TARDIS, leaving his own future looming behind him.

Jenny grabbed Strax's feet as Vastra lifted him under his arms. Even together, they struggled.

As they made their way over the uneven ground in between the gravestones of Trenzalore, Jenny could see from the look on the Silurian's face that she was still dwelling on the Master.

So was Jenny. She kept remembering that last look he had given Clara. "Does he know her?" Jenny asked.

Vastra looked up through a grunt of effort. She seemed to know precisely what Jenny was asking, as she often did. "Clara?" she specified. "I've no idea. Why do you ask?"

They maneuvered around a particularly large grave marker. Jenny didn't recognize the name. Someone the Doctor would know in the future. Someone who would die with him. "Just the way he looked at her. It was like..."

"Like what?" Vastra inquired, interested.

"Like..." Jenny searched for another explanation but she couldn't deny what she had seen. "He loves her."

Vastra snorted in derisive amusement. "Don't be ridiculous," she said. "If you knew what I know about that man..."

Vastra was smart, sharp. She saw details which escaped the most well-trained eye and had a vicious thirst for information. But she was often not the best student of the more emotional side of life.

"But he saved the Doctor," Jenny pointed out. "He can't be all _that_ bad."

Vastra set her end of Strax down on the stony ground, clearly needing a break. She stretched her clawed hands as Jenny followed suit. "My dearest," Vastra said, probably more patronizingly than she intended, "Clara Oswald may have her flaws but if there is any Time Lord she is in love with, it is certainly the Doctor."

"I never said _she_ loved _him_," Jenny pointed out cheekily. She relished the rare moments when Vastra made a mistake.

Vastra smiled, tight-lipped, not in the mood for games. "Think of all the people the Doctor has saved," she said. "Imagine if he had chosen to do the opposite. That is the man you met today. The Master has committed more murders than anyone can even number." She gestured upwards at the night above them. "More than the stars you see in this sky. All the people you and I have fought against, all the criminals we have brought to justice... Collectively, the horror they have caused is nothing compared to what that one man has done." She shook her horned head with adamantine certainty. "No one could ever love a monster like that. Nor, I believe, could he love anyone else."

Jenny didn't doubt for a second that Vastra's facts were accurate.

But she wasn't sure about the conclusion.

Because from what Jenny had observed of the Doctor and the Master's interaction, that last bit clearly wasn't true.

She looked ahead of them at the Doctor's back, shoulders squared as he carried Clara through the graveyard that lay inevitably in wait for him. "The Doctor seems to care about him," she said.

"Yes, well, the Doctor has always had a blind spot when it comes to the company he keeps," Vastra commented.

That was certainly true.

Luckily for Vastra, who had not always limited her prey to criminals.

And for Jenny, who would have died had the Doctor not saved her, a total stranger, alone and abandoned in a cruel world.

Just to be kind. Asking nothing in return.

Vastra moved to pick up their Sontaran friend again with a weary sigh. "I make it another four hundred and seventy feet," she said. "Onwards, my dear. A light glimmers at the end of the tunnel."

Ninety feet later, Jenny said what she was thinking. "But if he saved the Doctor, didn't he just sort of save all of us?"

"Believe me," Vastra said with a hiss of discomfort as her foot slipped on a loose stone, "that could not have been his intention."

"If you say so," Jenny replied with equanimity.

There was no winning an argument against Madame Vastra.

Sometimes it was best just to concede defeat.

...

Elsewhere, outside the cramped confines of Time and Space, two women talked amidst a sea of gold.

_"That went well,"_ River opined.

_'Yes,'_ the TARDIS responded. _'Everyone is safe and our Doctor will be happy.'_

River reached out through the gold. She could sense Clara dreaming... Back in the TARDIS now, safe and sound.

And she could sense the Doctor, too. The weight he carried... Thinking of Trenzalore, of what he could do and what he mustn't. Of mistakes he had made and days he longed to forget.

She wished she could carry some of that burden for him but there was so little she could do in her current state…

River sighed.

Being dead really was intolerably limiting.

_'Do not worry,'_ the TARDIS said. _'She will remember everything she has learned. She will know who he is and how to help him.'_

_"That was a lot of work,"_ River replied. _"Making certain she retained all of that."_

_'Yes. Thank you for your help.'_

_"Will it be worth it?"_

_'I believe so. He thinks he is alone, stranded from his own past. We shall show him that he is not.'_

"_That was clever, giving her the clues she needed to work out how to save him."_

'_He told her about the times she has saved him and expected her to forget. Sometimes he keeps too many secrets.'_

_"And the Master?"_

_'He is on his own journey, as you have already seen.'_

River smiled. Clara had met her for the first time this morning. But River...

River had met Clara long ago.

River knew a few spoilers about Clara Oswald and the Master.

_"When was this, for him?" _River inquired. _"When did you choose?"_

The gold shimmered mischievously.

_'One of the last moments before he knows his path. He also thinks that he is alone. But that time is over for him.'_

_"You showed him what losing Clara would look like... You really are a very naughty machine,"_ River Song commented admiringly. _"And quite the matchmaker."_

_'You are surprised? I found you for our Thief, did I not?'_

And if an infinite sea of living gold could wink, then that is what the TARDIS did.

River laughed. _"You really are the most hopeless romantic. Sometimes I wonder if you might be the worst of any of us."_

_'Perhaps so," _the TARDIS agreed contentedly.

"_Thank you… For giving me a proper goodbye."_

'_Are you certain that is what I gave you?'_

"_With you, it's difficult to be certain of anything. I'd ask what happens next but… Spoilers, right?"_

The TARDIS just smiled.

So River waited patiently in the gold for the next chapter of her story.

And the TARDIS continued her work, pulling delicately at the threads of Time, weaving beauty and order out of endless chaos... Taking care of her own. Bringing her lost children safely home.

...

The Master landed his TARDIS back in London, outside of Clara's flat.

It was barely dawn outside and he didn't want to wake her by accident.

He rubbed his eyes, weary.

Or... _Something_.

Discouraged, perhaps?

Everything just seemed somehow... _Off_.

He wasn't quite sure why.

Well, there would be plenty of time to figure that out after he'd said goodbye to Clara. He'd move onto the next phase of the Plan and then head back to Testimony.

He sighed, the work seeming less exciting than it usually did. An endless slog, stretching onwards for decades...

It had to be done, of course. The Doctor had to be saved.

But somehow it had seemed a lot more fun a few weeks ago.

Maybe he needed a break... There were always plenty of planets out there just begging to be taken over.

He ran his fingers thoughtfully over the controls of his TARDIS.

A quick side trip, maybe... Just to blow off some steam...

There was an unfamiliar sound from his pocket.

He fished around with a frown, pulling out the mobile phone he continued to carry with him purely out of habit. Harold Saxon had been tied to his phone, as Earth politicians generally were in the Twenty-First century.

He stared at it for a second, wondering how long it had been since he'd received an incoming call.

He pressed the button to accept the call and put the device to his ear, trying to remember how this all worked.

"Hello?" he squinted dubiously.

"Ha!" came the Doctor's triumphant shout from the other end, far too loud.

The Master held the phone a couple inches away with an amused grimace. When he returned it to his ear all he heard was a series of awkward clunking sounds.

"Doctor?" he said uncertainly.

"Yes. Hello. Sorry," came the Doctor's voice. "Slight technical difficulties. All fixed now."

The Master grinned, leaning back against the Console, filling in the blanks. "You got excited and dropped the receiver."

"Er... Yes," the voice at the other end admitted. "But there was a very _cool_ reason for it, which I will tell you all about... Some other time."

The Master chuckled at the Doctor's pathetic attempts at lying. "So?"

"So..." the Doctor replied happily.

There was silence for several seconds.

"What's going on?" the Master prompted eventually.

"Oh!" the Doctor said. "Well. Clara took a very long nap, for almost an hour. That was very boring... And then she wanted to go home so I took her home and now I'm reorganizing the TARDIS library. It's far more confusing now, which I think means I'm probably about halfway done. Or else, it's all gone horribly wrong."

The Master winced at the thought of how bad the library must be for the Doctor to admit that it was _confusing_ now. But the TARDIS would just put everything back in its proper place as soon as the Doctor lost interest. Which, as he'd walked away, had probably already happened.

"No, I mean... Why did you call?" the Master clarified.

"Oh," the Doctor said. "No reason. Just wanted to be sure the number worked."

The Master smiled, pleased that the Doctor had called just to say _hello_. But he didn't say that. Instead he asked, "You thought I gave you a fake number? _Why_?"

"How should I know?" the Doctor responded with a muffled thud which might have been a shrug. "You're always doing stuff that doesn't make sense. It could have been part of some great, big, enormous _plan_." There was a sound and a distant shout like he nearly dropped the TARDIS phone again while gesturing.

The Master tilted the phone away from his mouth so the Doctor wouldn't hear him laughing quietly. "_Everything_ I do makes sense," he corrected the Doctor after reigning in his amusement. "You just never take the time to understand any of it."

"I don't think anyone has that kind of time," the Doctor goaded quietly, straight into the receiver.

"Since that would require spending more than five minutes on one thing, I'd say you're hardly the expert," the Master shot back, settling comfortably against the Console.

They talked for a while longer, not about anything in particular. The Doctor's voice would occasionally fade in and out as he forgot to stay within reach of the phone cord.

Eventually, the Master sighed, realizing Clara would be getting up soon. "Gotta go. I have things to do."

"Murdery things?" the Doctor asked suspiciously.

The Master snickered. "Not today, no."

There was a pause as the Doctor considered how much he wanted to know. "What kind of things?" he asked, curiosity winning out, as it always did.

"Spoilers," the Master shrugged.

The Doctor sighed in annoyance and the Master laughed.

"Tell Clara I said hi," he smirked, heading down the corridor away from the Console room.

"I'm not doing that," the Doctor said, sounding strangely offended. "She doesn't even know you, why would I tell her that?"

"Oh right, my mistake," the Master said lightly, walking towards the kitchen pantry to pick out a coffee to brew for Clara.

There was silence for just a moment.

"You're being weird..." the Doctor muttered with an audible frown.

"Yeah," the Master agreed, satisfied that he had gained the upper hand. "Talk to you later."

He hung up to the music of the Doctor's protests.

After some consideration, the Master chose a particularly rare and expensive coffee from the Forty-Second century. He thought about the story he'd tell when Clara asked where it had come from.

She wouldn't remember but he'd make it a good one anyway.

Although none of their conversations really seemed to go as he had expected.

He wondered if she would still be upset...

Well, he'd wasted enough time with Clara anyway. It had been fun, getting to know her. Clara was delightful. Sharp and funny and unpredictable... Defiantly fearless. Far more interesting than any human really had a right to be.

But there was work to be done. His escape route was intact. He'd go back to the schedule, back to the Plan.

Clara had never been a part of the Plan.

Maybe that was what had been nagging at him earlier?

Easily fixed.

For a moment, he considered just leaving immediately...

But no.

Not just yet...

One more conversation. One more cup of coffee. One last goodbye.

Just to tie up loose ends.

_The End_


End file.
